Page 21 of Luna Ascending

I had no bloody idea how attached I was to the fiery-haired witch until it was too late. Which feelings are real and which have been contorted by her dark majik? I can't even trust my own emotions. I'm grieving. I'm full-out grieving the loss of someone who didn't ever really exist.

The Freya I was falling for? She's not real. She was only that person so that she could ensnare me, so that she could trap me. It makes me furious because the little bitch played her role so fucking perfectly that my own wolf still believes it. That's almost worse than the betrayal – I'm having to fight my wolf on this, every step. I should've known better.

After holing myself up for a week, I have a slightly better handle on my rage and I venture out of isolation. Intermittently I still catch myself behaving like a truculent teenager, taking offence over the smallest of issues. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't alpha-heir, but because I am my bad temper fans out over the pack-link, making tensions run high.

It takes longer than it ought to, but eventually my father’s waning alpha instincts kick in and he roots me out as the source of the upset.

This father-son talk isn't likely to go well. We're a close knit family but talking feelings is not something my father excels at – it's an alpha trait. Or maybe that's just the fucking excuse we tell ourselves to avoid shit like this.

“What the hell is going on Aaron? You're behaving like an emotionally unstable toddler- the whole pack is wound tight. This shit better not be over some harlot.”

I cringe slightly “I know. I'm not myself... I... I was seeing this girl. This human girl, and my wolf got really attached and...” I trail off.

My father's disapproval is palpable in the air as soon as I mention she's not a wolf-shifter.

“You were going out to find your Luna Aaron. You delayed a decision on the Luna Rite for a bloody human?! A human is not your mate, and definitely not your Luna. And yet you're getting your panties in a twist and affecting MY pack because of the fallout from dating a human?”

His voice rises “You lied to me. You lied to the pack, by omission – deceiving the pack about your intentions of finding their next Luna. Do you even understand how important it is for this pack to have a stable Alpha and Luna?! Did anything I've taught you about the Luna's link with the Watch ever sink into your thick skull?!”

I blink slowly. I hadn't even considered the Watch in all of this. Until I'm alpha and initiated into the Watch I know only a little more about it that your average pack member. The rhetoric every pup learns is that, as members of the Fenrir Watch pack, we have a duty to the elementals.

Through an ancient ritethose members of the pack initiated into the Watch are bound to protect the Doras - a gateway to the elementals.Each generation of the Watch consists of the Alpha and his Luna, the beta and any fated-mate pairs in the pack.

Just by being linked to the Doras every pack member is somehow that little bit faster, and that little bit stronger than your average shifter. But the majority of the power is through the Luna, her selected warriors, and of course her mate-bond.

I don't even know what the elementals really are, or exactly why the Luna is so important, it's just of those tales you assimilate as a kid and never think to question.

It's been generations since the Fenrir Watch were called on, which is a fucking good thing – we've dwindled to a handful of fated-mate pairs, and my own father has a chosen mate – we're a pitiful excuse for the force we once were.

What my father is driving at however, is that my taking a Luna isn't only important for me... it's vital to the life force of the pack, and to the continuation of the Watch. He's telling me I've risked the existence of the pack, and whatever the fuck it is we guard, and he's right.

I struggle to explain how conflicted I was, and why my wolf was so enamoured by Freya.

“ Father...” I correct myself “Alpha Connell, I thought perhaps somehow she was my mate. I didn't really examine how that could be...I know it sounds stupid. It was stupid.”

He scowls ferociously and it hits me - I'm still fucking keeping her nature a secret. Not telling my own father, my pack leader, the whole truth. I'm still protecting 'my woman'. She doesn't deserve that. She's not my woman. She's a witch, a conniving tricking deceitful witch and my pack need to know. They need to know what lengths the Coven are going to.

As alpha, Connell is incandescent when I explain Freya was part of the de Vaudou Coven, had not only hidden it from me, but cast a spell seducing me into thinking she was my fated-mate. As a father, he's far more lenient than I fucking deserve. I endangered this pack and the others under our protection just because I was chasing a bit of skirt. It's worse because he's being so forgiving about it.

The more we talk, the more my poor wolf paces around, frustrated that we’re bad-mouthing the woman he still considers his mate. I have no way of reconciling the more primitive part of my brain with the rational explanation that it's a spell, a trick of the mind. My sister's is wolf gone, and mine is locked in battle with me. Great.

Angus, the packs' beta, is positively distraught for me. That just makes me feel awful, as if I'm some disadvantaged, bottom-of-the-pack wolf everyone should feel sorry for. I'm the alpha-heir, I shouldn't need, and don't bloody deserve, pity.

The only council member who is entirely unsympathetic is my father's third in command, Rennard. He's the gamma, a sly grizzled wolf that I've never seen eye to eye with. He's also the fucker who approved Alpha Silver's proposition of his sixteen year old daughter as a child bride for the Luna Rite. He's a slimy, sleazy bastard and I've no idea what my father sees in him.

This time though, he has every right to disapprove. I don't need Rennard's prompting to feel disgusted with myself, although it's oddly cathartic.

I'm excused from the council’s chambers while they discuss the implications of this latest plot by the Coven. Being shut out is a slap in the face. By rights my place is in there. She's even taken that from me.

I see Rennard skulking out shortly after – his face a mass of scowls. He's never taken easily to being excluded from talks involving the Watch, but he never found his fated-mate – so he's never been initiated.

I try shifting, but spending time in animal form isn't a release. My wolf can't comprehend Freya's absence, despite knowing her only briefly. He stubbornly keeps demanding we go after her. Shifting is a battle of wills, and it's just making me more and more angry.

I'm a nightmare to be around. The pack is giving me, and my temper, a wide berth. That at least, I understand, but Tavey's absence is stark and confusing. We're alpha and beta – we’re meant to weather the good and the bad together. I need him to step up right now, and the arse is avoiding me. I already have a big hole in my chest, his desertion leaves one at my side to match it.

I swear, if it's that bloody cougar keeping him away then so help me I will make him choose between being beta and being with her.

Fuck, that's just jealously talking – I would never make him choose... but there's something gnawing away in the back of my mind. I know Tavey so well. I could swear he's hiding something from me, and hiding away from me to do it.

---